3 Lessons For The Holiday Season – What Hoteliers Can Learn From Christmas Movies

It is officially - the most wonderful time of the year - and hotels all around the globe are filled with the holiday spirit… along with guests, lots and lots of guests. The winter season can be especially stressful for hoteliers, who need to plan a solid strategy in advance, as well as make the extra effort to please already stressed travelers. You wouldn’t want to be thought of as the Grinch, or even a cotton-headed-ninny-muggins, do you?

So this year, we want to help you, busy hoteliers, to get into the holiday spirit while on the job, by teaching a few lessons that can be applied in terms of our favorite Christmas movies. Here’s how the movies, that we all know and love, gift us with a few valuable lessons, wrapped up carefully between laughs and Holiday cheer.

 

 

  • Learn from the ghost of Christmas past

 

Everyone has heard at least one retelling of the (not so) good old Scrooge and how he had to rediscover kindness and the holiday spirit the hard way. Our suggestion would be not to wait for a tough lesson, but instead to befriend the ghost of Christmas past and analyze your hotel’s past performance in order to later greet a more positive ghost of Christmas future. Before planning any strategy to attract guests to your hotel for the holiday season, take a step back and look at the reviews that you got from your guests last year, during the same period. Make sure that you are completely aware of what worked during the holiday season, what guests appreciated and what they didn’t quite like. In this way, you’ll know for sure what needs to be adjusted this year in order to have better results and an increase in positive reviews, which might contribute to a larger number of guests next year. When looking into your hotel’s performance, from the guests’ point of view, we highly recommend saving valuable time and effort by using a smart guest feedback platform. Our tool integrates a reputation management solution, which provides an insightful overview of the total number of reviews that your hotel received, which are thoroughly analyzed and broken down through a sophisticated semantic analysis. We suggest looking into this article to find out more about reputation management and how you can make use of our solution in order to achieve better results and make friends with the ghost of Christmas past.

 

 

  • Don’t leave your guests home alone

 

Sure the movie is fun, but who would want it to happen in real life? Not hoteliers, that’s for sure. During the busiest time of the year, it’s important to pay extra attention to cybersecurity (which we discussed more thoroughly in our technology trends article) and also to keep in close contact with your guests during their entire stay. A personalized experience is desirable 365 days a year, and especially at Christmas when travelers are looking for that warm, cozy, homey feeling. It’s essential in the modern era to make good use of technology in order to keep in touch with your guests not only before they check-in but also during their time at the hotel. A guest messaging solution, such as the one that we perfected at TrustYou, enables you to communicate with your guests in a way that is personal and preferred by many of them, as well as familiar. Direct messaging is highly popular nowadays and it enables so many useful types of interactions through a multitude of channels: you can encourage travelers to book through a live chat widget on the hotel website, you can send out pre-stay surveys to inquire about preferred methods of check-in or special requests, you can quickly and easily communicate during the guests’ stay to make sure that they have everything they need, or, in case any unexpected situation arises, that your hotel staff is on top of it. This ensures that issues are solved on the spot and negative post-stay reviews are therefore avoided. Not only that but being able to constantly communicate with a staff member and to make their voice heard makes guests feel like they are not on their own, away from home - on the contrary, it derives into a feeling of security and a personalized experience.

 

 

  • Show your guests that it truly is a wonderful life

 

Last but not least, never lose sight of what this season really is about. Kindness and generosity start at home (or in this case, at the hotel). Although the importance of revenue is never out of the question, now more than ever, it’s essential to show your guests that you genuinely care about their wellbeing. This is the time to go the extra mile, to show your guests how much you appreciate them choosing your hotel and how much you want them to have an amazing stay. If you’ve seen “It’s a Wonderful Life”, you might recall how the main character, while being at a crossroad in his life, is reminded of just how much his presence actually matters and how it influences everyone around him. There are many morals that we can take away from this Christmas classic, but the one that we strongly emphasize here is the importance of genuine care. Make friends with your guests, be kinder than ever, offer any extra perks and attention that you can spare. Show each guest that they matter, that they are special and unique and that their particular needs are considered and honored at your hotel.


At the end of the season, there’s a lesson to be learned from every story and all those nostalgic Christmas tales are particularly wise. During the holidays, your hotel business can profit the most from honest and personal interactions, a cozy ambiance, and lots and lots of kindness. We encourage you to make the most out of this magical season and to honor the Christmas in your heart and try to keep the spirit alive all year!

Catalina Brinza

Catalina is a social media and data enthusiast. At TrustYou, she's on a mission to bring the most out of travel and hospitality data. One day, she hopes to experience Japan's culture to its fullest.

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